Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kasai

Author:Kirsten Imani Kasai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ballantine
Published: 2009-11-14T22:00:00+00:00

A KISS, A KISS,

MY QUEENDOM FOR A KISS

“IF YOU SEE ANY OF THESE,” Sidra remarked, tossing Soryk a large brown seedpod as withered and vile as a shrunken head, “pick them up. When we have enough, we’ll have a delicious treat.”

Soryk stared at the gnarly kernel in his palm. Sidra fed him all manner of unappetizing forest findings and her meals always turned out quite well. She’d trained him to collect silvery juniper berries, dandelion leaves and baby ferns, and the starchy roots that proliferated beneath the rich black Erun soil. There were fat grubs to be plucked from betwixt bark and hardwood and red, foot-long worms that proved surprisingly tasty when tossed in a hot skillet with handfuls of pungent wild garlic, salted mealie, and a splash of oil. Sidra waved away Soryk’s questions about his hostess’s hypocrisy. Hadn’t he brutishly killed and devoured an innocent wild creature because she would not dirty her hands with butchery? And what about her lecture about life rights and passive vegetarianism?

When he broached the topic, she replied that insects and invertebrates were so abundant because they were intended to serve as food to support the broadest base of animals.

“Besides,” she added, “they don’t have eyes and they don’t bleed. I don’t have to see the reproach in their gaze when they slide into the nethers. It’s the way of the Erun. We all do it. If Oman No-Man hadn’t eaten bugs to ensure his survival, none of us would be here now.” She popped a crisp, coiled worm straight from the frying pan into her mouth and chewed it, defiantly.

Soryk spent the day’s remainder in a quiet state of unease. Some slippery thing glided round his mind’s recesses, and he could not finger what troubled him so. He craved civilization. The tension and pressure of his own suppressed want began to take its toll. As much as he enjoyed Sidra’s company and the pleasures of living in accordance with the land and his own whims, he knew he did not belong here.

Soryk was a man of the city. He felt unproductive in the woods, having no responsibility other than to tail the queen and scavenge seedpods and roots from the forest floor. The dream of the fish had mutated into a recurring nightmare that clouded the edges of his days and it seemed to him that the trees had grown even taller, more bent and oppressively twisted.

Sidra and Soryk waded through spongy loam that sucked at his boots as he walked and forced poor Kika to struggle along behind them, her legs blacked to the joints with mud.

Exhausted and cranky, Soryk snapped, “You said you were taking me to the city but you drag me deeper into this blasted forest. What sort of game are you playing at?”

Sidra turned, her eyes narrowed to angry slits.

“I’m not playing any games. You’re running me far out of my way and I’m wasting days of travel escorting an ingrate through my forest! I should have left you in the woods when I first found you.

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